A case study of the methods required to revive manufacturing industries.
The story of one of the most innovative companies in the world: the automobile manufacturer that makes some of the best-selling and longest-lasting cars on the road.
Superlatives aside, Honda's record speaks for itself, and International Business Times editor in chief Rothfeder (McIlhenny's Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire, 2007, etc.) highlights the achievements of its founder, Soichiro Honda (1906-1991). In the United States, Honda remains at the pinnacle of the auto industry, with such iconic models as the Civic, Accord and Odyssey; 75 percent of the cars and trucks it manufactured over the last 25 years are still on the road. For skeptics, the author's acknowledgments and the reference section detailing his sources will be helpful. In Rothfeder's telling, Honda is a much different auto manufacturer than others. Unlike Toyota, for example, it is not organized as a top-down pyramid of control. Honda's flat-type organization encourages local inputs. In Marysville, Ohio, technician Shubho Bhattacharya's Intelligent Paint Technology reduced “energy usage in the paint shop by 25 percent” and was rapidly deployed globally to like effect. Unlike General Motors and Ford, Honda also builds its own machinery, and workers cooperate with engineers to configure production lines, as they did in Lincoln, Arkansas. There, the “line's coiled shape” helped reduce its footprint and costs while providing a flexible assembly and quality-control capability. Soichiro Honda's career as an innovator took off in the 1920s, when he patented a design for unbreakable cast-iron auto wheels, and continued through his mastery of the skills required to manufacture piston rings that could improve combustion engine performance. Since then, the company has led the way in engine development. As the founder said, “success can be achieved only through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents one percent of your work, which results only from the ninety-nine percent that is called failure.”
A case study of the methods required to revive manufacturing industries.Pub Date: July 31, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59184-473-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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